Best tanks

The M4A1E8 wasn´t issued to tank units in the ETO until the Spring of 1945, and there is no evidence of any of them seeing any combat.

 

I completely disagree with you guys,the best tank of WWII cannot be any American made tank.Follow the combat standar Sherman too easy too be burn out and never can competed with Panzer V or Tiger,even with T34/76 though they have the same kind of main gun.Pershing engaged only few day before war end,so,don't count it.Steward or Chaffe are also out of question because thin armour and small main gun cannot compare to any thing.Beside,American tank crew lack of fighting experiences,they ran like rat in Battle of Bulge infront of few Panther.
German tank may be good but too few,don't ever count Tiger I as one of WWII best tank,only 60 unit was produced and 80mm gun seem to be to heavy for it.Tiger II(some mistook with King Tiger) is the real Tigers Allies faced in combat with 484 unit produced.Panther is good also but the armour easy to be break follow the lack of Niken of Reich,main gun 75mm cannot be count as the best fire power.
The real best tank of WWII is IS2( not JS,Stalin name is Ioseph follow Russian)with 120mm front armour,122mm main gun,120mm mortar support fire,3 7,62mm MG. IS2 appeared the first time in Kursk during the great offensive.IS2 can fight face to face equaly to Tiger 2 and very easy destroy any other tank by one round in the range of 2000m,they can provide support fire role like a 122mm howitz.

 

The 76mm M1A1C mounted on the M4A1 76(w) penetrated far, far more than the Russian 76mm F-34. You seem to think that more millimeters equals more power, and it doesn't. Not all 75mm guns are created equal.

The error in the Sherman’s design where the ammunition would cook off when hit was corrected with the introduction of wet storage for the ammunition, which was standardized on all Sherman variants by 1944. Also, when you consider it has 101mm of frontal armor protection slanted at 30 degrees that pretty much keeps it safe from most German tanks as long as the front is exposed.

 

German tank may be good but too few,don't ever count Tiger I as one of WWII best tank,only 60 unit was produced and 80mm gun seem to be to heavy for it.Tiger II(some mistook with King Tiger) is the real Tigers Allies faced in combat with 484 unit produced.Panther is good also but the armour easy to be break follow the lack of Niken of Reich,main gun 75mm cannot be count as the best fire power.


60 tiger I produced, (88mm) too heavy, ..., this is the worst post ive ever read. Panther gun was the ebst 75mm ever made, it was better than most allied counterparts, unless APDS shells were used. it was even better than the tiger I 88mm under 2000m. You seem to think that the more mm the more power.

 

The size of a tank gun does not necessarily equate to hitting power. Muzzle velocity is what counts. While the Panther and the early model Sherman both sport 75mm guns, the Panther's weapon is a high velocity gun capable of knocking out any Allied tank at a very respectable distance, while the Sherman's was a low velocity weapon poorly suited for antitank warfare. This was due to poor armored doctrine conceived by the US Army high command, which could not understand that tanks are going to end up fighting other tanks, if only because the other side is going to use his tanks to counter yours.

 

Tiger II= Kingtiger=Konigstiger=Royal tiger

1354 Tiger I built
489 kingtiger produced

Once I saw a documentary ( on the History channel ) about the american tankers in Europe and they feel overwelmed when they enconter the first german tanks, " with gun barrels as long as a telephone post" according to one tank commander and he also explained that they where trained believing they have the best tank ( Sherman ) in the world, what a nasty surprise was the encounter with the Panther and the Tiger

The Sherman tank was known as the Ronson lighter or tommy cookers

 

The Sherman's problem with incinerating after being hit was corrected, according to other members here, after a few years, so that significantly improved the Sherman. The later versions of this tank were, when judging the design strictly, far more developed than the Tiger. It had sloped armour, a comparable gun and better mobility. And the T34/76 was never able to counter the Panther or Tiger tanks, because those German ones were designed as an answer to it and were therefore way more powerful and better armoured. The T34/85, however, is a different story.

The American tank crews had fought in the war for more than two years during the Battle of the Bulge, and they were experienced enough, which was the greatest asset of the italian front: giving units combat experience. They ran in the Bulge because they were completely surprised by the offensive and because they believed that the Germans were once again unstoppable.

Over 1400 Tiger Is were produced during the war and it was perfectly suitable for the 88mm gun it carried; however the design was obsolete and its gun was less powerful than the 75mm of the Panther (5000 built). This has to do, as Corp said, with muzzle velocity and barrel length.
The 88mm on the King Tiger had an even longer barrel and was way more powerful than both the early 88 and the Panther's 75, but the tank was produced in really small numbers (485 built) and thus, it didn't make for much of a threat.

The IS1 appeared at Kursk, but the IS2 took till the end of 1943 to appear on the battlefield; even when it did, it had some very major flaws that other tanks of the war didn't have (notably the Panther). It could carry only a few rounds for its main gun, and these rounds relied on sheer weight to be effective. They were massive, which reduced rate of fire and punch on long distances. The fact is, the 122mm can be compared to the 88mm L/71, used on the TigerII, up to about 500 meters; after that the penetration of the 122mm drops off sharply where that of the 88 keeps on going strong. This was the most powerful anti-tank weapon of the war, save for the 128mm used on the Jagdtiger.

 

*sigh*

 

I read somewhere that the jagdtiger's maximum range for its gun was over 20,000 meters. Thats quite a distance.

 

I think that's too much, and if that's the case how you are going to direct your shots?, for long distance fighting you need gun directors, i.e. like in the battleships, the longest engagement that I know was 3000 for a Nashorn, equiped with the same gun that the Kingtiger used.

 

I know that the Jagdtiger's gun was capable of destroying even the newest Shermans from a distance of 3000 yards, but I don't know if it was ever used in such long-range engagements since most of the 120 Jagdtigers ever built were used in the Bulge and isolated in TD units thereafter.

 

That has to be an exaggeration. That's right about 25 kilometers, if I'm converting it correctly. No tank or AFV gun had that kind of range.

 

is exactly 20 kilometers

 

Check it out. It could be a typo though...

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/pz12.htm

 

It clearly says 22,5 kilometers... Wow!
I usually trust Achtungpanzer as a source...

 

mmmmm.
let's see:
155 mm/L55 SK C/28(5.9 inches) range at 40deg. 23,000 (25,153 yards)
used in battleships, i.e. Bismarck, Tirpitz.as a sec. armament

105 mm L/65 SK C/33(4.1 inches) range at 45 deg. 17,000 (19,357 yards)
used in all the major germans ships as AA

but still to be able to find tour target and hit it you need the gun directors not matter what

 

Well, this range was not for hitting things, obviously. I think it's just another great number for Hitler to be proud of. Like arming a tank with a 128mm AA gun.

 

Sounds good to me. Range like that for a tank gun is simply not practical on the battlefield. Too much can get in the way of your shot.

 

I think that on most battlefields, 20 kilometers is quite some way over the horizon. How would you know what you were shooting at? The idea of artillery, which shoots at these distances on purpose, is to fire a whole lot of rounds beyond sight and see if some of them hit something; some of them are bound to. Most artillery guns are not built for accuracy however.
To have a tank armed with such a gun is just useless, as there were no masses of Jagdtigers. Only 120 were ever made.

 

I doubt it was so much for the range as it was for the power. A gun that can shoot over 20 clicks can surely go thru alot of armor.